Ophelia & Gertrude

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Ophelia Gertrude

• Feminist Literary Criticism

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Ophelia
Gertrude
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Feminism the doctrine advocating social,
political, and all other rights of women equal to
those of men. an organized movement for the
attainment of such rights for women.
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Aristotle "The female is female by virtue of a
certain lack of qualities" St. Thomas Aquinas's
belief that woman is an "imperfect man."
History of Feminist Literary Criticism
Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the
Rights of woman (1792) marks the first modern
awareness of women's struggle for equal rights.
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1929)
became an important precursor for feminist
literary criticism. Virginia Woolf argues that
patriarchal society prevented women from
realizing their creativity and potential. Kate
Millet's Sexual Politics (1969) contained the
first modern principles of feminist criticism by
criticizing novels that were authored by males
for their assumptions about females. Also
introduced many new terms.
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Feminist Literary Criticism This type of
criticism is concerned with the impact of gender
on reading and writing. It usually includes a
critique of patriarchal society. Feminists often
argue that male fears are portrayed through
female characters. This criticism looks at the
female characters and their roles in the text.
Elaine Showalters Three stages of development
for Female Characters 1. Feminine Stage
Involves acceptance and acquiescence to the role
society has assigned. (2) Feminist Stage
Involves protest and doubts about societys
patriarchalism. (3) Female Stage - "phase of
self-discovery freedom from dependency. A
search for identity.
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Important Terms Defined
Erotomania Female love-melancholy in Elizabethan
time  Phallologocentrism - "language ordered
around an absolute Word (logos) which is
masculine phallic, systematically excludes,
disqualifies, denigrates, diminishes, silences
the feminine  Essentialism - taken from Women
Studies page of Drew University - "The belief in
a uniquely feminine essence, existing above and
beyond cultural conditioning Phallocentrism a
doctrine or belief centered on the phallus, esp.
a belief in the superiority of the male
sex. Patriarchy a form of social organization
in which the father is the supreme authority in
the family a society, community, or country
based on this social organization.
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Elizabethan Women

• Limited Roles
• Schools reserved for boys
• Could not enter into professions of law,
  politics, medicine. Only allowed to work in
  domestic service.
• Could not vote
• Childbearing considered a great honor for women
• Single women suffered the most- they were accused
  of being witches and looked upon with suspicion.
  
• Single women could become nuns but after the
  Reformation, convents were closed.

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Melancholy

• Ophelias madness would clinically be
  characterized in Elizabethan times as female
  love melancholy
• Melancholy was fashionable among men at this
  time. It was associated with intellectual and
  imaginative genius.
• Yet among women, this was seen as an emotional
  disease.

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Ophelias Three Stages

• 1. Feminine Stage Involves acceptance and
  acquiesence to the role society has assigned. 2.
  Feminist Stage Involves protest and doubts
  about societys patriarchalism. 3. Female Stage
  - "phase of self-discovery freedom from
  dependency. A search for identity.
• Ophelia accepts Poloniuss advice. She follows
  and obeys him and thinks of herself as someone
  who cannot make her own decision.
• After Laertes advice to her, Ophelia tells
  Laertes not to be a bad priest who cannot
  practice what he preaches.
• Her craziness gives her freedom from dependency.

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Contrast of Poloniuss Advice Given to Laertes
and Ophelia

• Advice to Ophelia
• Believe youre a foolish little baby
• Give yourself more respect or youll make me a
  fool- either means will give him a grandchild, or
  make him a laughingstock.
• Hamlets vows are traps for birds
• Dont Mistake Hamlets vows as true love
• Dont waste your time with him
• ABOVE ALL, listen to Polonius

• Advice to Laertes
• Dont be too quick to act on what you think
• Once youre in a fight, hold your own
• Clothes make the man so spend money on clothes
• Once youve found trustworthy friends, hold on to
  them (Hes trusted to make his own decisions)
• ABOVE ALL, Be true to yourself

All Practical Advice
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Polonius and Laertes

• They are the two authority figures in her life
• Before, saw Hamlets love as innocent and holy
• She loves Hamlet
• Polonius and Laertes both warn her about his
  love. She begins to see that love may not be so
  innocent.
• When her own thoughts of Hamlets love are
  replaced by her fathers beliefs, she does not
  know what to believe. I do not know, my lord,
  what I should believe.
• When her brother and father present a harsh
  belief that Hamlet may not have good intentions,
  she realizes it is a frightening world. She seeks
  refuge in the domestic role that women have been
  assigned to for centuries and becomes passive,
  only obeying her father and brother.

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Nunneries

• Act 3, Hamlet says get thee to a nunnery.
• As Ophelia drowns, Gertrude describes her songs
  as religious hymns or old lauds.
• Her songs are like chants that are associated
  with nunneries.
• While pre-reformation women may have gone to
  nunneries to escape, this option is not available
  to Ophelia.

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Owl was a Bakers Daughter

• In one of her songs, she sings, they say the owl
  was a bakers daughter.
• The bakers daughter was transformed into an owl,
  when Christ asked for bread but she only gave a
  small piece.
• The bakers daughter being transformed into an
  owl is like Ophelia being transformed by madness.
• Like how the bakers daughter made the wrong
  decision, Ophelia also made the wrong decision
  that led to her madness and death.
• Ophelias decision that led to her madness and
  death was trying to obey her father and be a good
  potential wife to Hamlet.

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Ophelia Complex
Ophelia complex, the phenomenologist Gaston
Bachelard traces the symbolic connections between
women, water, and death. Drowning, he suggests,
becomes the truly feminine death in the dramas of
literature and life, one which is a beautiful
immersion and submersion in the female element.
Water is the profound and organic symbol of the
liquid woman whose eyes are so easily drowned in
tears, as her body is the repository of blood,
amniotic fluid, and milk. A man contemplating
this feminine suicide understand it by reaching
for what is feminine in himself, like Laertes, by
a temporary surrender to his oen fluidity that
is, his tears and he becomes a man again in
becoming once more dry when his years are stopped.
Im drowning
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Flowers
Elizabethans would have recognized the flowers
she clutched to herself when she drowned as
definite phallic symbols, indicative of her
repressed longings
The symbolism in her drowning is itself an emblem
of the inner conflict which drove her to madness.
She drowns in her fantastic garlands, woven of
buttercups, daisies, nettles, and long purples,
flowers that represent her innocence, pain, and
sexuality, woven together here in madness as she
had been unable to do in her life.
Rosemary was often given as a token of
remembrance between lovers, not merely in
remembrance of the dead Pansies the popular
name for was love-in-idleness', so the
thoughts' they were used to represent were often
erotic ones. Fennel symbolized not only flattery
but also fickleness in love, and was even
associated by Robert Greene (in A Quip for an
Upstart Courtier) with women's sexual desire in
general. Because of the homed shape of its
nectarines, Columbine became a symbol of
cuckoldry for either sex rue conventionally
stood for sorrow and repentance, but was also
thought to abate carnal lust. Daisy, emblem of
Alcestis, symbolized self-sacrifice for love, but
also represented dissembling love and the folly
of believing such deceits
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Ophelia is Zero
When Ophelia is mad, Gertrude says that Her
speech is nothing, mere unshaped use.
Ophelia's speech thus represents the horror of
having nothing to say in the public terms defined
by the court. Deprived of thought, sexuality,
language, Ophelia's story becomes the Story of
Othe zero, the empty circle or mystery of
feminine difference, the cipher of female
sexuality to be deciphered by feminist
interpretation.
She thinks nothing says this to both Hamlet and
Polonius.
Ophelias madness
 Ophelia's virginal and vacant white is
contrasted with Hamlet's scholar's garb, his
suits of solemn black. Her flowers suggest the
discordant double images of female sexuality as
both innocent blossoming and whorish
contamination   In Elizabethan and Jacobean
drama, the stage direction that a woman enters
with disheveled hair indicates that she might
either be mad or the victim of a rape the
disordered hair, her offense against decorum,
suggests sensuality in each case.
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Ophelias Relationships With Males

• Hamlet has a misogynistic attitude towards women
  in general. He therefore pushes Ophelia away.

• She is subservient and obedient
• Act 2- the two authority figures in her life her
  father and her brother supposedly give her
  advice, but really meant to frighten and insult
  her love for Hamlet, which led her to doubt
  herself, her trust in love, and Hamlets
  intentions
• Trying to submit to her father and to be a good
  potential wife for Hamlet has brought her
  nothing. Or rather, it has brought her shattering
  grief and madness. Her father warns her more
  abruptly You do not understand yourself so
  clearly / As it behoves my daughter and your
  honour (I.iii.97-98). She is his child, his
  property, a vessel of procreation, no more but so
  
• Both her brother and her father warn her
  repeatedly to defend her honor, her virginity,
  which is the fragile basis for woman's
  respectability and personal value in patriarchal
  society

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Gertrude and Ophelias Relationships with the
male characters
Ophelia -  Dependent on men to tell her how to
behave virgin and daughter vs lover and
whoreophelia is used by the men around
her.polonius' daughter and spylaertes' sister who
is under his control and will do what he
askshamlets' lover she will perform her wifely
duties even though she is not betrothed
The Gertrude who does emerge clearly in Hamlet is
a woman defined by her desire for station and
affection, as well as by her tendency to use men
to fulfill her instinct for self-preservationwhic
h, of course, makes her extremely dependent upon
the men in her life.  She is at her best in
social situations when her natural grace and
charm seem to indicate a rich, rounded
personality. At times it seems that her grace and
charm are her only characteristics, and her
reliance on men appears to be her sole way of
capitalizing on her abilities.
the differences Gertrude is strong enough to
manipulate the men around her but its the men
around her that accidentally lead her to her
demise.  Ophelia is weak and her innocence and
dependence on men destroy her also.  the
difference is the men in Ophelia's life love her
but their love and repression cause her insanity
and suicide.  but in both cases these women are
dependent on the m en in their lives who though
provide them meaning in their life, cause their
deaths as well
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